


more than survive

by vi_sobriquet



Series: Reaper76Week2018 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Military Backstory, Omnic Crisis, Reaper76 Week, Reaper76week2018, SEP era, random assortment of side OCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 14:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13436409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vi_sobriquet/pseuds/vi_sobriquet
Summary: 1 // "war buddies" prompt for reaper76week2018where jack lives, laughs, and loves a little easier with a help of a few friends.





	more than survive

They call him a hero before he’s even set foot on a battlefield.

Jack can’t say he enjoys the attention, and he doesn’t exactly want to remember what happened to make him a household name, but Indiana already knows and that’s enough to send Jack packing for somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

x x x

Soon enough he’s in fatigues and polished boots and saluting men and women he sees only a few months a year. There are training drills to follow and counter-interrogation techniques to perform and sleepless nights to take their toll.

When there are psych evals to fill out, he says he’s fine.

Of course, he’s fine.

One shrink tells him fine doesn’t mean healthy, to which Jack says fine means surviving and that’s a lot more than he can say for some folks out there.

The shrink had studied him with calculating eyes before he leaned towards Jack and asked:

“What if you could do more than survive?”

x x x

There’s a lot of things Jack hears about their squad leader when he arrives at SEP headquarters. He’s never laid eyes on the man, so it’s the talk that counts and it passes the hours while they’re screened through a few phases of training. Most test out of the program.

Jack doesn’t.

As he gets further along, he hears it on good faith that Gabriel Reyes has a spot reserved in hell. That, although the people at his stage don’t see the man often, he’s a real piece of work with a knack for pulling the rug out from under ya. And even if nobody has it confirmed – cuz it’s all how rumor has it – that ‘he’s got more than just cocks shoved up his ass.’

Jack’s already stopped listening in on the gossip. He chalks the talk up to his comrades being so fucked over by the weekly injections, they can’t help but come up with stories to clue in on their seemingly nonexistent commander.

Admittedly, the last one has him wondering how long it’d been since he got off. SEP and the impending crisis doesn’t exactly lend a great backdrop for hook-ups or choking the chicken.

Which is something of a shame. Because, while the backdrop is downright dismal, the rest of the scenery looks good enough to eat. He even gets a few offers to do so, though they come in the lovely intervals between vomit-inducing injections and exhausting baseline sessions.

He turns down most propositions because of that. The one he decides to pursue ends abruptly anyway, because his partner throws up midway.

Jack doesn’t take it to heart. Especially not three days later, when he learns the man’s bunk was cleared out.

Physical limits are being tested, pushed, broken, and then pushed again. Jack understands the subject pool is being thinned out but he doesn’t realize how much the numbers had dwindled until he does a headcount, four months into SEP.

He checks and rechecks and keeps coming up with an even fifty-two. Three hundred-something participants at the start of their rounds, to just fifty-two in four months.

The day after he counts, it becomes forty-eight.

x x x

Jack meets Gabriel Reyes six months after the government first shot up his veins with super juice and three months after Jack forgot the man was supposed to exist. His name was spoken around the base, but in the same way people talked about unicorns.

By this time, Jack doesn’t care about whether Reyes is real or not. He cares about Sigrid, Nash, and Waimarie and if they’re all going to walk out of med bay after what’s announced to be their final injections. He doesn’t know too much about them but they were all added to his squad, or he to theirs, at some recent point in time.

Jack knows Sigrid has sisters in every corner of the country and none of them like visiting each other. He knows Nash considered becoming an artist after a few stints in special forces but decided against it after a vision told him to continue to serve. He knows Waimarie came from New Zealand and married a man but really only loved his dog and his house.

There are only thirty-two of them left.

At the end of the night, Sigrid doesn’t make it, Nash checks himself out, and Waimarie goes AWOL.

The next day, Reyes shows up in his unit’s quarters. Jack is still in a hospital gown, soiled with night sweats and dried blood. If Reyes takes offense, he doesn’t show it, and that makes Jack thankful for something.

The man asks, “You John Morrison?”

“Jack, sir,” he replies automatically, throat a touch hoarse from coughing.

“Well, Jack, looks like it’s your lucky day.” Jack knows the man’s looking around, casting his eyes on the empty beds, and _luck_ is probably the last thing going through his mind.

No one could be that cruel.

He doesn’t know if he says it out loud, if it’s something about his body language, his facial expressions, or if Gabriel Reyes could read minds because the man tells him, “Desperate times calls for desperate measures.”

And when Jack meets his eyes, he thinks, _maybe he just knows._

x x x

Reyes takes him somewhere else, along with all the other surviving, viable recruits. It’s just as clean and cold as the other place but there are no needles filled with classified drugs and the bunks are more often full than not.

Jack’s given access to the outside world after orientation. He cries the first time he breathes unfiltered air again and Reyes has to gruffly remind him that people have schedules to keep before he lets himself be led wherever next.

He’s the newest addition to Reyes’ unit. Baqi is the next, though he’s been in SEP almost as long as Reyes himself and just transferred from a different unit. Grady and Maeve are the rarest pair of twins Jack thinks he’s ever met, and neither veto the opinion when he brings it up.

For dinner, instead of the mess, he begs to be taken to McDonald’s. Reyes pulls a face and takes him to a White Castle instead. The booths are too small to even attempt cramming five super soldiers into, so they take it to-go and eat in the parking lot.

“Good grease,” Reyes says, “differs from bad grease in how it makes you feel afterwards. You lick your fingers after good grease.”

Baqi groans into his hands and rubs his eyes as if he’s futilely made the same argument before. “It’s still grease.”

Jack and Maeve snicker when Reyes emphasizes, with sectioning gestures, “ _Good_ grease. _Bad_ grease. Don’t lump ‘em together.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Grady says, jaws bursting with two burgers stacked inside his mouth. How he manages coherent speech, Jack doesn’t know and Jack doesn’t mind letting the mystery slip away.

When a laughing Maeve shoves her brother too hard and he starts choking from his big mouth, they’re all laughing. Which probably isn’t conducive to Reyes giving Grady the Heimlich but Grady’s laughing with them, even after the burgers pop out in wet goops.

While the others muffle down into light chuckles, Jack’s still bent over, laughing so hard he’s hiccuping. At some point, his team's looking a little embarrassed, but Reyes doesn’t. There’s a soft smile for every moment of Jack’s unabashed state of bliss, even when he tells the man to get in the car or he’s walking back to base.

Jack eventually contains himself along the ride but no one dismisses how his beaming face holds even after the first few sets of drills the next day.

Things could get better like this.

x x x

And they do. For a good while anyway.

Soldiers aren’t supposed to be killed before battle after all. When they’re not training for war, they’re doing their best not to think about it. As sure as Reyes will work them to the bone, he’ll give them time for bed rest and play. They’re a sparse handful of hours stitched together in the form of timed breaks and watercooler chats but Jack lives for them.

He finds out that Grady and Maeve were on different SEP cycles. That Baqi was the one who convinced Grady to reunite with Maeve. That Maeve gets trigger happy in the shooting range whenever her brother’s in medical, recovering from recurring injection symptoms. That, to stay awake, Grady lists the places he and Maeve have lived in before. That, to keep faith, Baqi and Maeve hold hands and let their wedding bands clink.

“ _Bozeman_ ,” Grady often whispers repeatedly when he’s sedated into a stupor. " _B_ _ozeman was the best_.”

Jack notes that Gabe isn’t usually in the equation of the camaraderie. He tends to keep to himself. When he brings up how he doesn’t seem like the hard ass he’d heard about, Grady hums and shakes his head.

“Boss just likes to be alone. Some people don’t take his personal space seriously and they wind up gettin’ a bad idea.”

“It isn’t for a lack of care,” as Baqi assures.

Jack doesn’t buy that -- not entirely, at least -- because it’s not from the man himself but he doesn’t question it either. With everything he’s heard about the man, Jack knows that face value at least gives pretext, if not permission for assumption.

Besides, even if it’s true he doesn’t linger, Reyes never turns down their invites to relax and team build.

It doesn’t take long before they’re all teaching each other to cook barely remembered family recipes; going off-base for beach days and midnight barbecues by moonlight; holding movie nights and going through every film they can get their hands on.

At one point, they’re rewatching films enough times to just reenact the scenes themselves. That snowballs into stagings where they’re holding their own performances of old movies their great-great-greats would’ve watched.

Reyes is best at those. He outperforms them every time in the spotlight, delivering line after line from old sci-fis and westerns with an easy flourish that never comes off exaggerated.

When Jack asks, he tells him, “I used to act.”

“Anything I would know?”

Reyes shakes his head with an amused grin and sends him on another five laps.

x x x

Jack learns Reyes _definitely_ cares. If he had to fault the man, in fact, it’d be for caring too much -- but he doesn’t, because no one could be that cruel, and he cares too.

He learns one night when he walks into the squad’s common room to see the TV lit up in the dark. The sound is off but muteness doesn’t quiet every explosion captured on the live Russian broadcast. The people running, mouths wide in silent terror, as omnics marched toward them.

When the camera shakes and fades to black and the feed returns to a stunned set of Russian newscasters, he switches it off.

“I was watching that,” comes from behind him, low on the couch, and Jack nearly jumps out of his skin as if he’d been in Russia himself.

He blinks a few times to realize it’s Reyes leaning against the foot of the couch. Surprise fades to the background as questions rise to the surface of Jack’s mind. Questions like, _is command going to call a code blue_ and _how long has it been since the attack started_ and _why isn’t Reyes comfortably tucked in his CO quarters?_

He doesn’t get the chance to ask any of them because Reyes fixes him with a blank stare that effectively orders _shut up_. There’s a beer in his hand but Jack knows the man is as sober as a brick.

Reyes is deadly quiet when he tells Jack he’s here to make soldiers out of whoever and whatever he can. Time’s of the essence when god programs already have machines of their own, conveniently created to kill on command. Machines who aren’t concerned about anything but cold, ruthless efficiency in completing their objective.

He admits if he could work with robots of his own, he would. He wouldn’t have to sacrifice anything but wires and metal and circuit boards to fight against other constructs of wires, metal, and circuit boards. He wouldn’t have to train psychologically precarious minds to not collapse under the burden of keeping humans safe.

But in these times, robots were the enemy and Reyes was ordered to do his best with humans in all their frailty. He was instructed to believe all he needs is a body that breathes and has enough common sense to not die when a fully-loaded pulse rifle is shoved in its hands.

A look at Reyes, sitting empty on the floor, is all Jack needs to know he doesn’t believe that.

Jack also knows Reyes needs words to latch onto. Something that won’t make him regret what he’s admitted to one of the very people he’s meant to change.

As if Jack hasn’t already.

He sits down on the opposite end of the couch and nods towards the bottle in Reyes’ hands.

“Can I get a beer with that?”

There’s a pause that leads Jack to think perhaps that wasn’t the choice he should’ve gone with. Perhaps, Reyes isn’t the kind of man to appreciate a break. Jack gets so caught up in doubts that he doesn’t catch the chuckles coming from Reyes until the man quakes with full body shakes of desperately needed laughter.

Jack feels heat rise up his neck as he just stares in awe for no other reason than the fact that the sight of Gabriel Reyes laughing is the most beautiful thing Jack thinks he’s ever laid eyes on.

While Jack adjusts in his seat, Reyes pulls out a beer from a non-regulation six-pack and hands it to him.

“It’s not cold anymore,” he tells him.

Jack takes it with a shrug. “Beer’s a beer.”

“Where are the others?”

“They’re in the mess.” Jack takes a sip and in his head, he takes back what he says about beer. He swallows it anyway, adding, “Grady wants to do something special for Baqi and Maeve’s third anniversary.”

Reyes groans good-naturedly. “Tell me I don’t have to deal with another fire show.”

“Sorry, Reyes, my lips are sealed.”

The man turns to him with unspoken thanks in his eyes and a smile on his lips.

“Call me Gabe.”

x x x

Tensions run high the weeks after attacks in Russia. Drills and the like are amped on double-time but no one’s heard of any squads shipping out across the sea. Jack can’t tell if it’s better that they know what they’re up against. There isn’t a person on base who isn’t on edge over the thought of fighting omnics, who hasn’t seen footage of the onslaught.

With every day they remained on base, training away the hours, Jack forces himself to watch the broadcasts with the volume cranked high.

Reyes says it’s good that they know what they’re expecting, that the crisis is what everyone signed up for. If there’s any doubt left on any of their minds, they should have known better.

But on evenings when it’s just them, a few open beers, and the stars overhead, they both know that’s anything but what Gabe wished he could say.

They’ve been having these meetings on the roof almost every night after the one in the common room. Something about Gabe clicks with Jack enough to let him feel comfortable to confess how he doesn’t want to be a hero. Something about Jack lets Gabe know that his back’s covered if he’s got Jack at his side.

He tells Gabe about Indiana and growing up on a farm, raising corn and milking cows. He talks about the fire and how his town thought _hero_ was a just word for someone who only pulled out a few of the many who burned. That the military was a way out of an empty house and stares that held bitter mixes of pity and awe.

Gabe in turn talks about LA; about his love affair and ultimate heartbreak with theater. Jack learns how Gabe turned to service on a whim, and while it was the worst decision he ever made, he couldn’t say he regretted it. He’d regret ignorance more than war, saying, “I do what I have to do.”

And, glowing with pride, he goes on about his extensive family, from his three-year-old nephews to his twice-removed aunts. How, once the omnics were finished, Gabe would want to take Jack to meet them.

"If you wouldn’t mind, of course.” He’s got on the same gentle smile as when they first went out for White Castle. Jack notes the dimple on Gabe’s left cheek twitching, the way it does when he’s nervous and doesn’t want to show it.

Jack clinks their bottles together. “I’d like that.”

x x x

“I’m shipping out soon,” Gabe eventually mentions.

“Krasnoyarsk?”

“Detroit.” Jack nearly chokes on a stashed White Castle burger but Gabe continues. “Command says the omnium in our own backyard takes priority.”

“There aren’t even reports of omnic activity there yet.”

“That’s why I'm taking another squad.”

“What, we’re not good enough for you?” Jack jokes. He notes how it misses the mark by how Gabe doesn’t fully smile back.

“Too good, actually.” The smile grows and Jack breathes a little easier. Gabe shrugs and adds, “Daniels' squad just needs to learn how to not fuck up when we go live. Shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“Don’t jinx it. Russia could happen to us any day now.”

Gabe doesn’t respond to that. He wolfs down the rest of his sandwich and gets up to head back downstairs, murmuring about needing to wrap up a few things before the night is over.

As Gabe’s boots _thomp_ down each metal rung, Jack throws out, “I found something the other day in the film archives, starring some guy named Gabriel _Flores_.”

He hears it when the other man stops in his tracks, head poking out from the hatch like a ground hog, but with the face of a deer in headlights. “Didn’t think we had anything in obscure indie rom-coms.”

Jack grins innocently. “Someone might’ve put in a request.”

It’s only a heartbeat later that Gabe grins back.

x x x

Their first code blue comes when Detroit goes to shit.

Jack hears it from Daniels, as she’s wheeled from the returning ship, that Gabe’s not onboard, that intel was wrong on inactivity at the omnium. He has to pull the rest of the details from Baqi after Daniels passes out from the whole shoulder she’s lost.

Twenty minutes after it gets through his head that Gabe is MIA, Jack’s squad -- officially under Baqi’s command -- is pulling into the air with ten other volunteers. Once the debrief’s over and done with, Baqi pulls Jack aside and reminds him of what Gabe’s always saying:

_Rushing in without your head means you’re going to lose it._

Though, if Jack comes clean, he lost it the instant Daniels touched down with every member of her team _but_ **_Gabe_**.

Gabe, who lets him laugh as long as he wants and needs to; who buys non-regulation alcohol that’s still shitty because the man he most admired drank it to his dying day; who doesn’t flaunt his affection until he can’t contain himself and bursts with praise.

Baqi’s shaking him for an answer until Jack comes to and shoves him off, shouting over the comms; _“I’ll do what I have to do.”_

Before he left, Gabe said the mission probably couldn’t go wrong.

Jack is there to make sure the rest of it doesn’t.

x x x

They find Gabe three days after landing in Detroit. Three days of aiming at self-illuminating heads and dismantling the automaton bodies that keep crawling forward. Every ten minutes, Jack thinks he sees Gabe but it’s never him -- just another bot he shoots down without a second thought.

In the aftermath, Baqi has him chase down any remaining omnics. It’s an obvious ploy to keep him busy but he cut Jack from all non-emergency comms before he could be called out on it.

Though Maeve’s dispatched with him to secure the area, they hunt in silence. He doesn’t look at her unless she’s got news. She should know he doesn’t have interest in anything else.

They’re almost finished when Maeve sends him the look he’s been waiting for, and he shoots the last bastions down in rapid succession. In his ear, his comms crackle back to life, and although he’s expecting Baqi, he gets --

_“Jack.”_

All Jack can do from going weak-kneed with relief is to grip his pulse rifle tighter. Maeve makes a motion to follow and then they’re hiking through scraps of metal and broken chunks of cement.

“You’re okay,” he whispered. The chuckle on the other end gets cut off by a hiss of discomfort.

Jack tenses at the noise, until Gabe promises, "I’m right as rain, Jack.”

There’s silence on his end for a moment until Gabe prompts him with his name.

“Heard you’ve been lookin’ for me, boyscout.”

Jack grins from ear to ear. “You bet I have.”

“And?” Gabe asks lightly. Static catches at the end, and Jack can tell there’s a quiet demand to be found in that single word.

Jack walks ahead of Maeve to the retrieval ship, where he catches sight of a familiar man sitting upright on a stretcher. He doesn’t wonder if Gabe will be as relieved to see him as Jack is -- he knows it from the way _and?_ echoes in his head.

Switching to a private line, he asks:

“Don’t you and I have a rom-com to watch?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: 
> 
> 'choking the chicken' in a strictly non-agricultural context is actually much more pleasurable than the phrase sounds.
> 
> edit: i feel very html inadequate


End file.
